Russell Crowe full throttle

"Richard thought it was the best thing to happen for years,"
says Crowe. "The only thing that disappointed him
was that I didn't hit anyone." I point out that Crowe did come
close. "I did get to give [Gerrie] a good single poke in the
chest." Crowe explains that he hadn't expected to win,
had had a few drinks and was in a "funky netherworld" of jet lag.
He was also irritated that the organisers had cut his thank-yous to
John and Alicia Nash - but he isn't offering excuses. "It was
ultimately a badly delivered speech, so I can't blame the editor
completely," he laughs, "but they should have been more sensitive
to the subject matter. Who cares? It's no significant thing at all
really."

I ask him if it bothers him that people keep bringing it up. "No
one's brought it up for years," he says. "This is all about you."
He holds my gaze stone-faced for slightly too long and then
smiles.

Crowe is keen to set the record straight on a
couple of things that have come up since we last spoke. The fact
that his charity donation made the papers annoyed him. "I don't
want to rag on the UK Cancer Council," he says, laughing at how
preposterous that sounds, "but I don't like being used." He simply
wanted to give money to a "righteous charity" after seeing their
advertising campaign.

Another article annoyed him more. "What about the one where I got
banned from a pub I've never been to?" He was dismayed when the
story broke worldwide. "I was getting all these e-mails saying, 'I
hope you told that pub manager where to stick it.'" He feels that
the lack of care in reporting is typical. "How hard is it for the
guy at the Sunday Express to find the truth? But you ring
the paper and they start to play games." The newspaper eventually
issued a retraction 21 days after publication, explaining that not
only did the specific incident not take place, but "Mr Crowe has
not been banned, ejected or asked to leave any pub in Windlesham,
Surrey or anywhere else in the UK".

Crowe, for his part, seems to be taking it all
in good humour. "They think they're clever... but they will laugh
differently when [adopts the tone of James Ellroy] 'the Devil is
fucking them in the ass!'" He giggles. He points out something he's
learnt from more than a decade of dealing with the tabloid press.
"If you've been in this business a while you'll know that the "no
smoke without fire" thing does not mean shit. Guys sit around and
try to interpret the expression in a photo. Record reviewers base
it on the cover. We got all these reviews as a heavy metal band...
and we were playing folk harmonies!" What becomes clear
during our conversation is that even on potentially contentious
topics, Crowe is not above a degree of self-mockery.
"That is a very important thing, mate. The miles of articles you'll
read saying, 'He's so serious blah de blah.'"

How did he feel about Kirk Lazarus, the preposterous,
self-aggrandising Australian actor played by Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder?
Crowe smiles broadly. "A hell of a
performance," he says with conviction. "It has nothing to do with
me. Robert can't do the Irish accent that was in the script, so he
used an Aussie accent. He did the same trick in Natural Born
Killers."

Between films, Crowe retreats home to Australia. He once said
he'd only move to LA "if Australia and New Zealand were swallowed
by a huge tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in Europe and
if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack".
His base is a working farm a 45-minute flight from Sydney and has
everything he needs, including a cricket pitch, a home recording
studio and even a Byzantine-style chapel in which his children were
christened.

"It's the greatest decompression thing in the world. It works as an
antidote to the people-intensive job I have. Nobody calling out
your name. Nobody saying, 'I know you hate this but...' You can
wear daggy shorts, scruffy boots, get your hands covered in
shit..." Despite the wildlife and the occasional luxurious touches,
he doesn't want people to get the wrong idea, though. "People say
it's paradise. But it's very simple, man. It's just a farm..."

Andy Morris

Andy Morris is the former editor of GQ.co.uk and a ten year veteran of GQ. Follow him on Twitter @iamandymorris.